


meet her where the world ends

by trueprinci



Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: F/F, Hallucinations, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-21 00:57:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6032365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trueprinci/pseuds/trueprinci
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Death doesn’t discriminate</i>
  <br/>
  <i>Between the sinners</i>
  <br/>
  <i>And the saints</i>
  <br/>
  <i>It takes and it takes and it takes</i>
  <br/>
  <i>And we keep living anyway</i>
  <br/>
  <i>We rise and we fall</i>
  <br/>
  <i>And we break</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Madoka and Homura are slipping away, but their love still stays.</p>
            </blockquote>





	meet her where the world ends

**Author's Note:**

> WOW SO i started writing this in 2012 most likely, so i figured i owed it to my gay baby teenage self to finish this. i made it more gay and more sad. who knew. also my ptsd ass was like hey after the shit they went through, they would have trauma and react to that trauma. so i guess this is an au where madoka's final wish did not go right. they are dying and so am i. OH ANOTHER THING i originally wrote this in second person so i had to change some early stuff from you/your pronouns so if there's any misplaced you/yours then that's why. i don't even know if this fic makes sense but take these miserable lesbians
> 
> some additional warnings that are small: emetophobia, brief gore mention, and reactions to trauma (cuz ptsd). homura hallucinates as well my dudes
> 
> i wrote this while listening to [amicae carae meae](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufFNCURN1w4) on repeat because, well, it sounds like a tragic dance

She meets her where the world ends.

There, Homura dances with the girl she loves, soft and slow and caressing; careful. She's fragile and Homura finds that she is becoming that way too-- _god_ , she hates to think of not being able to be strong and protect her until the end-- but she knows that it was always meant to be that way.

 _Inevitabilis_ , she once mumbled from beneath the noise of honey-soaked words which had long begun to grow bitter.

Her hand, clammy and forgetting feeling, lacks warmth. Fragile, the stately girl reminds herself. She is becoming fragile; not frail. Homura doesn't have the time she once spun to her whim on her side any longer. Knowing the inevitable could hit her in the face at any moment could freeze every nerve, but she fights a war within her young body to suppress thoughts such as those.

She doesn't care, either, since everything Homura could ever want is in her arms. Time can come as it pleases, as long as it will allow her to stay with Madoka for just a little while longer. Homura wishes to be by her side and nothing else.

 

-

"Homura..." she croaks from where her tired head rests on Homura's shoulder. 

"Yes?"

"I love you."

"I'm glad." She circles her arms around Madoka tighter. Her lips change shape against Homura's skin, and she thinks with a twinge of hope in her heart that it may have been a smile.

"I'm really glad."

"Don't you love me, too?" she asks unsteadily. 

"Of course I love you. This has to be the fifth time today I've said it." she answers with an equal amount of caution.

"Oh, sorry." Madoka laughs, and the sound rings like thousand year old bells. Clear, sweet, and damaged. "I'd forgotten."

"I know, but that's fine. I love you." She'll say it as many times as she needs her to say it, because it's truer than the dark rosy hue of Madoka's eyes and truer than the fish in the ocean and the birds in the sky. Homura loves her so much, and the earth can shake and the sky can drop, but the swell of Homura's chest when Madoka's lips form her name will never change.

 

\--

Inevitably is a pressure like no other on the final days. Homura wakes, stretches, plants a kiss on their hair she hasn't yet swept from Madoka's face, and rises to make breakfast for the two of them. Only when she has lost track of greasing a pan does she begin to feel her stomach sink. Her gaze has been won over by the glint of dawn through the scratched window above the sink, and with a start, her stomach plummets. 

The pan goes clattering to the floor, and Homura's back presses flushed to to the wall, chest heaving. Her arms cross her abdomen, feebly mending the feeling of her intestines trying to cut and burst from inside her. Homura swears she did not wake up with the sheen of sweat she wears now, as her body goes limp to the shaking of her legs. 

She kept telling herself not to panic, but she supposes that need in her body caught up with her.

When Madoka finds her, her wide eyes are fixed on the rainbows from the displaced sunlight, and her whole body rests on the ground, arms tight enough around her knees to strangle an intruder.

Madoka helps her partner bathe away the sweat in a lukewarm shower which turns freezing in a half an hour, leaving two girls unfazed in the stream of cold. Afterwards, Homura heaves emptily into the toilet, and Madoka calmly braids her hair back. The day continues as normal in an hour or so, because it has to.

 

\---

The day it happens, Homura wakes up knowing. 

Their bedroom, blinds blocking the sun, rests dark with the assumption that their eyes will quickly adjust to the lack of light. This assumption is never disproven. The girls' eyes relish in the strain never faced, if only holding the dazzlingly loud light of day back for a moment.

Madoka wakes her with a hushed voice and no touch, the way she knows to wake Homura without having her lurch awake, breathless, heart hammering. Homura knows today is the day, because all tension has melted from her body. She feels nothing; she is resigned to fate. 

Madoka says nothing, but Homura knows that Madoka has resigned herself as well. Her pigtails bob as tilts her head to the side, closing her eyes and smiling gently over Homura. Homura smiles back, and quietly clears her throat. She doesn't want Madoka to panic when she reaches her hands to Madoka's cheeks, tugging her softly down for a kiss. Madoka returns her gesture, and Homura feels the birdcage beneath her ribs unlock. She is glad that the birds will be gone by nightfall.

After the two get dressed and head for the open field they've made into a dance hall, Homura, hand-in-hand with her greatest love, discards mentioning the tears she wiped from Madoka's eyes as she kissed her. Homura wonders if the remaining tears in her body were transposed to Madoka, and if that is God's idea of a joke.

When they reach the field, Madoka bounds ahead of her plum-eyed love, stumbling as she goes.

"Homura, the air tastes so good!" Madoka exclaims, checking Homura's face for confirmation. "It's winter, but the world is still alive!"

Homura nods in agreement, sneaking a glance at their white footprints. The ones further from their spot in the field are fading as her eyes land on them. Homura snaps her attention back to Madoka, refusing to let _inevitabilis_ follow her. 

The girl, pink hair graced with flecks of melting white, bounces on the balls of her feet, tongue outstretched. Homura approaches her as her giggles of delight upon catching snowflakes on her tongue grow more prominent. 

"Want to dance?" Homura asks gently, long accustomed to soft warnings instead of startling her partner. 

"Nnm!" Madoka agrees with a nod, tongue still out. The two laugh, and she remembers to put her tongue away. "Spin me, okay?"

Homura takes her hand, and the two quickly fall into the rhythm of dancing. Their feet will never cease their clumsiness, but they have both learned not to step on each other's feet. Madoka clasps Homura's hand and leads her in a waltz, face scrunched in comical seriousness, humming counts to the two of them. Homura follows her, gladly invinting the swing of her dance for minutes upon minutes, only stopping to remind Madoka of her own request.

"Oh!" she says in earnest, and Homura watches her ears burn pink. Homura breaks the contact of their hands to reposition them both, letting Madoka revel in the spin she wanted. 

Madoka's humming picks up the pace, and Homura takes the hint, smiling as she dances more feverishly with her eager love of a girl. She leads her down into a dip, bringing her back to her original place and allowing Madoka more and more indulgent spins. They are both laughing when Madoka grasps Homura's shoulders, steadying herself from her dizziness.

"Your turn!" Madoka proclaims, quickly finding her footing and dipping Homura. Breathless, Homura returns Madoka's kiss when it comes fumbling to her face. 

The two dance with more space between them, exchanging dips and twirls and sways until their shallow breaths have them moving closer to one another. After a coughing just a few times short of a fit, Madoka stumbles towards Homura. Homura catches her easily, bringing her into a hug and continuing to sway, pretending the dance isn't over.

"Don't overdo it." Homura chides, her face in bubblegum hair, leaving a few pecks as she finishes speaking.

"I know, I know." Madoka mumbles hot into Homura's shoulder. 

Madoka's stomach clenches with the coughing fit she releases into the air. "Let's....let's sit down." 

Homura moves them both gently into the snow, helping Madoka lie beside her. She smiles at Homura in silent gratitude, but her brows are tensed, sheepish. Homura moves her hands to Madoka's back, rubbing vertically into the dampness of snowy fabric.

"I'm tired, Homura. I'm so tired." Madoka admits, and Homura's stomach jumps. A bird flies free from her ribs.

"You can sleep." Homura tells her calmly, hands unwavering on Madoka's back.

"Falling asleep has been so hard. Why? Why can't we sleep easy?" 

Homura closes her eyes, reminiscing on the wave of sleepiness that hits her. "It doesn't matter. I'm sure we'll be able to sleep now."

Madoka scoots closer to Homura, collecting heat between their foreheads, now touching. "Mm, you're right. We'll dance together after we sleep, right?"

Homura smiles painfully, another bird escaping her with damaged wings. "I'm sure we will."

Madoka, seeming satisfied with that answer, allows her eyes to droop closed. Her breathing evens, free of the wheezing that comes with her coughing fits. Homura shifts, bringing her love snug to her chest, earning a sigh of content from the girl.

After a feeling of ages of listening to the whistling snowy winds of the earth and gentle breathing of Madoka, the girl strikes up a one-worded question, and Homura finds she has no energy to jump at sudden words.

"Homura?"

"Yes?"

Madoka pauses, and in the weight of that space, Homura acknowledges the cold around them.

"I love you."

Homura doesn't hesitate, and her words feel hot. "I love you too."

Madoka repeats the phrase, spinning the words around and around in the wind. Homura hushes her gently, assuring her that her strength should be saved. 

Madoka pushes back from her chest, and looks Homura straight in the eyes. "I want to tell you that until I go, okay?!"

The final bird flies free from its boney cage. Homura is stunned.

She nods, and Madoka burrows her head back into Homura's chest, inhaling deeply. On her exhale, she picks her stream of "I love you's" back up, and Homura joins her. On the off beat of Madoka's love, she returns the words.

For another age or so, the two exchange their love in breathy words. They gradually lose their momentum, but never their meaning. The wind whips around their bodies, carries their words, and spills them into the approaching night. The sky grasps for the ends of daylight, cascading in favor of moon and starlight. 

Homura's mouth is tingling when she stops to swallow away her dry throat, and she realizes Madoka has ceased talking. Her chest still rises and falls against Homura's, and her lips are still turned up into a smile. Homura quickly resumes her proclamations of love, but Madoka does not.

Gently, Homura feels Madoka's breaths grow further and further apart. She squeezes Madoka tighter against herself, shutting her eyes and dropping her "I love you's" to whispers.

At the end of her final three words, the last breath escapes from Madoka, and her body lies still.

To her surprise, Homura does not cry nor scream, but instead feels a quiet acceptance spread through her nerves. She continues to stare at the blackness of her eyelids, but Homura's mouth no longer moves. Her breaths come easier than she expected, but slower than she hoped, and she feels the last bits of energy her body stores begin to slip away. 

She can no longer feel the cold of the snow or the hardness of the earth beneath her. She doesn't feel hardly anything, save for a warmth that takes the place of where her body once was. The darkness Homura sees turns over to a steadily increasing light, and an urge to move towards it.

Homura notices that she has not taken a breath for the longest time, but discards that, feeling one hand grow warm, and the rest of her body fuzzy. When her eyes flutter open, she can barely make out the shape of a human form in front of her. The form is silhouetted against a ring of golden light, a hand outstretched towards Homura. The warmth of her hand, she knows now, is caused by the contact of another. They grasp Homura's hand, running their thumb over her fingers, sending a spark of energy back into Homura. She can see clearly the form in front of her, and she grins widely, squeezing her hand in return.

"Let's continue this dance, shall we?"


End file.
